


Reminiscence of a Happy Life

by WaterlilyRose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Rememberance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Growing Old, Hurt/Comfort, Married Life, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 17:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13323246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterlilyRose/pseuds/WaterlilyRose
Summary: Kylo looks through an old photo album.





	Reminiscence of a Happy Life

**Author's Note:**

> If you are wondering if you have seen this before, you have. I've deleted Compilation as the set up wasn't really working for me and gonna post the prompts on here that I have written (won't be hard - I only did five)
> 
> Warning: might hurt. Quite a bit.

Kylo lowers himself into his chair and grimaces as his joints protest with the activity. When did the simple act of sitting hurt so much? He had been a general, a knight, a man who had dominated armies. Now putting his slippers on hurt!

Old age doesn’t agree with him. He never foresaw himself getting to such an age. It was his destiny to die young. Skywalkers always died quite young by today’s standards. So to enter twilight years to outlive his own father in years… it didn’t seem fair.

Shaving was too much effort nowadays. His hands shook and he cut himself rather easily. His skin was looser and the stumble was silver. His hair was silver too when it had once hung in black curtains. Yet he refused to cut it even now. No amount of time would make him expose his ears!

Perching his glasses on his nose, he looked down at the holo-album that he peruses most nights now. Looking back doesn’t hurt like it used to. The past is now a beautiful thing.

The first photo always makes him smile.

It’s a photo of two people sitting side by side. The man is thirty years old, with a long face and a longer nose. He’s trying to smile but it looks oddly awkward on his features. Like he’s out of practise. Yet his dark eyes twinkle. The man is undoubtedly happy. Even in his odd clothing that doesn’t consist of black robes, but simple trousers, a grey jumper and black waistcoat that itched quite a bit, the man was happy.

The woman by his side smiles so broadly and happily that she looks radiant even though he’d started to view this holo-image a bit too much that it was becoming distorted. Brown hair in three-buns, freckles on her tanned face and twinkling hazel eyes, she is beautiful. Her joy makes her even more stunning to him. This woman had finally agreed to a date with this long faced man. It had taken many attempts at asking her. It had been the incident of them nearly crashing the ship that his father had handed him down that had converted her.

“If we live, I’ll go on a date with you!”

She’d actually shrieked this in panic and had gone rather red with embarrassment when they had managed to land the ship safely and they were faced with the prospect of impending life. But she hadn’t gone back on her word. She’d just mumbled that he should pick her up an hour after her shift ended in the hanger. Just so she could wash off the grease in the fresher beforehand.

The picture was of their third date. He’d kissed her goodnight that night. Well, he’d kissed her cheek but she was the one who moved her face so she caught his lips instead.

He hadn’t minded.

Kylo swiped the album across and there they had been.

The younger man was now dressed in midnight blue robes while the girl had worn a white flowing dress. She had flowers in her hair. The man still wasn’t smiling in this picture; he looked too stunned to smile. Like he could quite believe it was actually happening. He had the worst luck in the world: he wasn’t meant to marry such a beautiful creature.

The next picture showed the man finally smiling. But the man was also evidently crying at the same time. The woman, now his wife, had chuckled about it and threatened to send it to that Captain that the man didn’t like. Of course she never did. She treasured it instead. Besides how could he not cry? When she was holding their newborn son?

The baby had a tuft of black hair that was a little damp with blood from his recent birth but otherwise seemed rather inclined towards sleep. He didn’t notice that his parents were looking at him with pure awe and adoration. Nor that his father was a whimpering mess.

There were more photos. Photos as the child and the couple got older. The boy got taller, the couple became a bit more lined and slowly went a bit greyer. Yet they were all smiling in the pictures. Always happy.

“Oh dear, did I really wear my hair like that for so long?”

Kylo looked up. The woman was bending over his armchair, looking with a look of disapproval at her former fashion choices. Her hair was lightening now with the years but she refused to dye it. What was the point? It would only come off again!

“It was practical at the time.” Kylo reasoned with his wife. “You were bending over ships all the time. It wouldn’t have done for your hair to catch fire. Besides this family has questionable hair. Look at my mother’s buns!”

“She was a princess. She could wear whatever the hell she liked.”

Rey sat herself down beside him. She knelt without an expression of pain. Her youthfulness more glaringly obvious as they got older.

“And look, Anakin was once smaller than me.”

“Good thing we have photographic proof of that.” Kylo mused, earning him a tap on the shoulder.

Their conversation was light and easy. Tried and tested from years of marriage. So when suddenly Kylo jerked himself awake from this musing, he was surprised to see his son standing over him instead.

Anakin looked very much like him yet his features weren’t so long as Kylo’s. Even though he looked grave now.

“Sorry… but you shouldn’t sleep in the armchair Dad. It’s bad for you.”

Kylo barely listened. He was looking around. Where was Rey?

And then he remembered.

Remembering was easy. It was the times he forgot she was gone that broke him each and every time.

“She… she was here.” Kylo suddenly sounded young. More young than he had been in the photos. Like a small child that was pleading to be believed. Pleading for it to have been true.

Anakin nodded. He didn’t contradict his father. He probably knew it would not end well. And maybe he didn’t want to either. Maybe he wanted it to be true for a moment too.

“I know Dad. I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching Up! and... well, if you don't cry in the first ten minutes, we can never be friends(!)
> 
> Feedback is love.


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